
Tracking Sales with Salesforce Opportunities
- Conversion. The first question you need to ask is: At what point does someone go from being a lead in Salesforce (see this post for more information about what a ...
- Opportunity Stage. ...
- Opportunity Type. ...
- Amount. ...
- Close Date. ...
- Contact Roles. ...
- Primary Campaign Source. ...
- Other Fields. ...
- Activity Tracking. ...
- Pulling it all together with a Dashboard. ...
What is Salesforce and how does it work?
Salesforce, one of the world’s leading CRM platforms, helps you streamline, manage, and track your sales process for optimal performance. This article will teach you everything you need to know about how to use Salesforce to manage your sales process. Salesforce is a big name in the sales world, and for good reason.
Should you track your sales activity in Salesforce?
If you’ve invested in Salesforce, you almost certainly want to take advantage of it by tracking your sales activity in Salesforce. Maybe this is something you’re approaching for the first time, or — and this is perhaps more likely — you tried at one point to use Salesforce for this purpose, and you’ve since begrudgingly given up.
How to measure sales targets in Salesforce?
How To Measure Sales Targets In Salesforce 1 Dashboard gauge. 2 Forecasts tab. 3 Lightning Home Page Performance Chart. 4 GSP Target Tracker. More ...
What is the Salesforce forecasts tab?
The Forecasts tab is the standard function in Salesforce for target measurement. It’s an advanced method of comparing sales versus quota. You can view Closed Won opportunities that contribute to sales targets in the Forecasts tab. Pipeline deals also show up.
See more

How do you track customer sales?
Here are 5 steps to sales tracking success:Step 1: Decide on the KPIs and metrics you need to track. ... Step 2: Define your sales process and set up your pipeline. ... Step 3: Gather your data into one single source of truth. ... Step 4: Turn your data into actionable insights. ... Step 5: Share these insights with other teams.
How do we track sales activity?
15 Important Sales Activity Metrics to Track in 2020:Number of Leads Created. ... Number of Calls Made. ... Number of Emails Sent. ... Number of Follow Ups. ... Number of Social Media Connections. ... Number of Logged Visits. ... Number of Conversations. ... Number of Discovery Call Summaries.More items...•
What can I use to track sales?
Here are the best sales tracking software option to use:Insightly.HubSpot CRM.Agile CRM.Bitrix24.Close CRM.Salesforce CRM.SugarCRM.Vtiger Sales CRM.More items...•
How do I create a sales dashboard in Salesforce?
Create Salesforce reports and dashboardsStep 1: Identify which Salesforce objects your sales metrics are related to.Step 2: Choose opportunity-related fields you want to display. ... Step 3: Add filters to fine-tune your reports. ... Step 4: Add chart and run report for testing.More items...•
How do you keep track of online sales?
9 Tools to Help You Keep Track of Online SalesCountr. As a social shopping platform, New York City-based Countr lets you and your friends share, recommend, swap and group chat about potential online purchases. ... Covvet. ... Lyst. ... Parcel. ... Pinterest. ... Savelist. ... Shop It To Me. ... Shopstyle.More items...•
How do you manage sales activities?
8 Ways to Implement Sales Activity Management for Your TeamDiscover Which Sales Activities Matter Most to Your Business. ... Assign “Balanced” Sales Territories. ... Track Your Field Reps in Real-Time. ... Empower Reps to Sign Contracts While On-The-Go. ... Use a Leaderboard to Track Performance (and Motivate Reps)More items...•
How do you keep track of sales in Excel?
7:499:45HOW TO TRACK YOUR SALES USING EXCEL - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipI can either select both of these numbers. And my sum pops up down here or I can just click on thisMoreI can either select both of these numbers. And my sum pops up down here or I can just click on this block here and click autosum. And then hit enter and it'll give me my total for the the month.
What is KPI in Salesforce?
Salesforce Key Performance Indicators and Metrics A Salesforce KPI is a measurable performance metric used to monitor, analyze, and optimize the customer relationship management (CRM), including all relevant sales processes. Among other things, Salesforce metrics help the sales team to prioritize resources and leads.
How do I create a KPI dashboard in Salesforce?
0:3714:58Lightning Fast Salesforce Training: Sales KPI Dashboard - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipSo to begin we're just going to go into reports. And we're going to create an opportunity report. SoMoreSo to begin we're just going to go into reports. And we're going to create an opportunity report. So remember reports and Salesforce are really easy because they use this wizard.
What are sales dashboards?
What is a sales dashboard? A dashboard is a sales app that provides a visual representation of your most recent performance metrics. It gives you a concise view of results-based metrics like sales to date, sales by region, lead conversion rate, sales growth, and so on.
Conversion
The first question you need to ask is: At what point does someone go from being a lead in Salesforce (see this post for more information about what a lead is) to being an opportunity? This is your conversion point.
Opportunity Stage
The first field to consider is Opportunity Stage. If customized correctly, this field will give you a ton of insight into what’s happening with a particular sale. You’ll know where this opportunity is in the sales process, what the probability of the sale is, and the next step in the process.
Opportunity Type
The second question we need to ask is “what do you sell?” Do you have multiple offerings or services that your customers are buying? Do you want to be able to report on what you’re selling most frequently, or what exactly a certain customer has purchased?
Contact Roles
A Contact Role defines the part that a contact plays in a specific account or opportunity, so you should use contact roles to keep track of who you are working with on a particular deal. Often, the primary contact will be the lead who originally contacted you about the opportunity.
Primary Campaign Source
The last field I would recommend updating on your opportunity records is Primary Campaign Source. If you’re following our advice, you’re tracking all your higher-level marketing touchpoints using Salesforce’s campaign functionality. If you’re not using campaigns, my blog post next month will go into greater detail about them.
Other Fields
Those are all the really important standard fields to pay attention to on the opportunity record. There are other fields that come standard on the Opportunity object that you might find helpful to use, like Next Step or Description, but that’s up to you. You also might have other things you want to track, and in that case, the sky’s the limit.
Activity Tracking
In addition to tracking information specific to each deal using the fields outlined above, you’ll also want to track your activity around those deals.
Identifying your Sales KPIs
At some point, hopefully, you’ve sat down as a sales team and explored what the key metrics are to determine the desired level of activity of your sales team. You may have identified two, three, four or more key activities, but chances are it’s not many more than that.
How Many? It Should be Black and White
Now that the metric has been established, and the required number of times it should occur each week has been determined, you need to reinforce with every member of the sales team that this is the desired objective. So, come Friday afternoon, a salesperson and sales leader will easily be able to identify whether or not the goal was achieved.
How to Configure and Capture KPIs in Salesforce
Ok, so if you’re still here and you’ve bought into this premise that a solid KPI is an essential tool in your Sales Leader arsenal, the next piece is to determine how you are going to accurately capture this information. Hello Salesforce Activities!
Tracking Your KPIs with Salesforce Activity Reports
So far so good, right? Ok, so now it’s time to put together a report your Sales Leaders will love. Pretty straightforward stuff actually. Create a New Report using the Activities Report Type. Go with the top option, Tasks and Events. Remember, Log a Call and New Task are both “Tasks” to Salesforce.
Micro-managing, or Managing?
I meet an incredible number of Sales Leaders that are averse to managing their teams this way. They feel that is too intrusive, or too granular and claim that it is micro-managing their team. I’ve heard Sales Leaders claim that they have a senior sales staff that really won’t adapt to this level of management style.
Get Your Sales Teams to Embrace Salesforce
We’ll show your sales people how they can become more productive with Salesforce.
Can you deploy a picklist?
Once your new picklist values are live, you can deploy the new reports and dashboards. Make sure to adjust the time range or other filters on the reports if needed to fit your business. If you have a large sales team, consider additional filters for certain user roles or sales territories. You can also apply a filter on the dashboard that gives managers and users a big-picture view with the option to drill down into their particular team.
Do sales reps log activities?
Other sales reps aren’t logging any activities. The central team appears to have landed on some approaches that work. These kinds of insights serve as a great blueprint for other sales teams. After your sales team logs activities for a month or two, analyze the patterns, and see if any indicators of success emerge.
Why is tracking leads important in Salesforce?
Tracking leads in Salesforce is important because it helps marketers understand which channels, campaigns and keywords are driving not just leads, but high-quality leads. This data will help your team to optimise their marketing and their budget. One easy way to track leads in Salesforce is with Ruler Analytics, but we’ll get onto that shortly.
What is lead source in Salesforce?
In Salesforce, lead sources are broad buckets of data. While the contact will continue to carry the data assigned to it into their associated contacts and opportunities, this only gives you access to add data not obtain it. Campaigns meanwhile allow you to add very specific data. It could be a campaign name and date.
How many touchpoints does it take to convert a prospect into a customer?
According to Google, for low-cost products like a chocolate bar it could take as many as 20 touchpoints to convert a prospect into a customer. While high-cost products like flights could take up to 500!
Can you track leads in Salesforce?
While it is a great lead management tool, it’s hard to track your leads in Salesforce. Leads can be entered into Salesforce manually, via a list import or automatically via a web-to-lead integration.
Sales Performance Strategies
Set performance goals and incentivize sales teams through strategic sales operations.
Annual Planning with Sales Operations
Create a clear path to success for sales teams with the right key performance indicators.
How Salesforce Is Organized
In order to get the most out of your Salesforce platform, it’s important to understand the ins and outs of how it’s organized.
How to Set Salesforce Lead Stages
Much like the Stages outlined above for Opportunities, the Lead Object in Salesforce can also be tagged and sorted based on Stages.
Creating a Guided Sales Path in Salesforce
Salesforce Lightning users have the opportunity to cohesively blend the many Stages across the sales process into a guided sales path.
Managing Your Leads, Contacts, and Opportunities in Salesforce
By now, it should be clear that a little bit of organization and customization within your Salesforce account can take your team a long way in mastering a proven, scalable sales process.
Track Sales Activities and Measure Your Progress
Once your team has the architecture in place to adopt and scale your defined guided sales path, you can turn your attention to the day-to-day tasks that will make the biggest difference to your bottom line: sales activities.
What is dashboard in sales?
A dashboard, such as the one in a car, is a tool that visually showcases information: It’s where you can quickly and easily see vital signs that affect your current task. In business software, a dashboard for your sales platform provides important information at a glance and keeps you aware of necessary metrics and performance standards. Sales management, ops, individual account executives, and other team members all benefit from using sales dashboards.#N#The majority of top salespeople rely on their sales dashboard for day-to-day operations. Depending on your industry, type of sales (B2B or B2C), the size of your company, and your role, your metrics dashboard may not be the same as someone else’s on your team. And based on current incentives, company offerings, and personal and departmental goals, some metrics may be necessary one week but not the next.#N#Your dashboard is an effective way to keep your sales — and your goals — organized and continuously updated. No matter your personal needs, there are specific metrics that are always pertinent. Just like the dashboard in a car, without these data points you won’t know the health of your sales, how quickly you can achieve your goals, or if you need to speed up (or slow down) your sales process.
What is the sales cycle?
Sales cycle. The average duration or time, typically measured in days, it takes a salesperson or your team to win a deal. If you take this average and compare it to the age of each opportunity, you can see if your current opportunities are moving through the funnel as expected. 8.
How effective are dashboards?
Dashboards are most effective when they give you an overview while ensuring you know the details, too. Salespeople and sales managers have to juggle a number of big-picture metrics, including: With that in mind, the perfect sales dashboard should have some combination of the following 12 metrics.
Why are dashboards important?
Dashboards are most effective when they give you an overview while ensuring you know the details, too. Salespeople and sales managers have to juggle a number of big-picture metrics, including: Individual salesperson performance. Pipeline performance. Forecasts. Your company’s competition. Product performance.
Why is it important to use CRM?
Your goal is to display relevant information in a way that’s quickly understood — and using your CRM, to make sure your dashboard is always up-to-the-minute accurate, which is especially important when a salesperson is outside the office and views their mobile dashboard.
Is it easier to sell to existing customers or to sell to new customers?
It’s easier and more cost efficient to sell to existing customers than it is to sell to new customers. As a salesperson, you need to balance new business with upsells. This metric keeps you on track.

Conversion
Opportunity Stage
Opportunity Type
Contact Roles
Primary Campaign Source
Other Fields
Activity Tracking
- In addition to tracking information specific to each deal using the fields outlined above, you’ll also want to track your activity around those deals. Using Salesforce’s Activity Tracking, you can log your calls and emails and set up tasks and reminders for yourself so you can keep yourself on target and make sure nothing slips through the cracks. ...
Pulling It All Together with A Dashboard
Learning Objectives
Introduction
Introduce Picklist Updates
Analyze Key Sales Activities
- Once your new picklist values are live, you can deploy the new reports and dashboards. Make sure to adjust the time range or other filters on the reports if needed to fit your business. If you have a large sales team, consider additional filters for certain user roles or sales territories. You can also apply a filter on the dashboard that gives man...
Monitor Usage
Resources